The Adventures of Sage McDougall
by Adi Sagestar
Summary: A girl is sucked through a portal into the world of Jellicles and is turned into a Mary Sue. Will she be able to rid herself of this curse and maybe, just maybe, rid the CATS fandom of Sues forever? Previously entitled Why Me? ON HIATUS
1. Prologue

**Yes, it's finally happened- Adi Sagestar, the great Critic of Everything, has written a story herself. For all of you who have responded to my reviews with the argument that if I'm so smart, I should write something myself, well, here it is! **

**Disclaimer: Mine! lawyers mutter dangerously Mine? lawyers come after me with pitchforks Alright, fine! ****clears throat**** CATS does not belong to me in any way, shape, or form. Happy now?**

**So, without further ado, my story!**

Sage McDougall was your average weirdo. She had shoulder length dark-brown hair which she normally wore in a bun, glasses, and was a quarter Indian. She wore mostly old soccer shirts and jeans, and never let makeup touch the surface of her skin.. She was obsessed with CATS in a very big way, was a fairly good artist, and read fanfiction a lot. If she had to be categorized, one might call her an athletic nerd. Currently, she was upside down.

"Hey, Sage." She opened her eyes at her friend's voice.

"Oh, hey, Emilie."

"Dare I ask just why you have been hanging upside down from the monkey bars for the last half hour?"

"It's some meditation thing from this book my mom got. Apparently being upside down helps you not focus. It didn't work," she added, making a face.

"Well, you should probably stop. You've been getting some weird looks from passerby, and your face is pink."

"Meh." She dropped to the ground, then got up awkwardly and dusted herself off. They walked out of the municipal playground together. She and Emilie had been friends ever since they could remember, although they were exact opposites. Emilie was one of the most popular girls in school. She always seemed to know what to do and say around people. She had curly blond hair and an optimistic attitude. Sage, on the other hand, was awkward and shy in social situations, entirely different from her normal self. No one would have thought they would be friends, but they were like sisters.

"Hey, where are we going?"

"We could go to my house and go on the computer. I found a couple more we haven't read." Recently, Sage and Emily had been starting a fanfiction Sue War. They would search out Sue stories, read them, and give blistering reviews under the joint penname of 'Critic #1 and Critic #2'. This had sparked many a nasty personal message and review reply, which they had responded to with equally nasty personal messages. They found the whole thing highly amusing.

So they continued on their way, chatting about what they would say in their reviews, the latest Harry Potter movie, and whether or not to stop and get some M&Ms on the way home.

Yes, life was good for Sage McDougall.

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	2. Arrival

**Chapter two of this wonderful story! Part of this chapter is in Sage's POV, because I tried to make it third person and it didn't work. Sorry I haven't posted in a while, my family went on vacation and there wasn't a computer, and then I had some Internet problems.**

**Disclaimer: Been there, done that.**

Sage was walking home alone, and she was in a bad mood. Emilie had detention for not turning in her homework, so they couldn't get together, Derrick at school had been teasing her about her name, which was not an uncommon occurrence, and the weather was overcast and drizzly, which meant no soccer.

When she reached her house, her mom made her go outside and weed part of the garden, never mind the fact that it was raining by now and she had a lot of homework. When she got back in, it took fifteen minutes and a dollar to wheedle her little brother off the computer. When she finally sat down in front of the screen, her bad mood had escalated to the point of growling at anyone who came near. It was with great relief that she logged on to her fanfiction account and began looking for any and all humor stories. After laughing her head off a few times, she started looking for other stories. She was in the mood for drama, or maybe romance, or both... preferably something involving her favorite character, Mistoffelees. Before long she was entirely engrossed.

In the middle of a really good Mistoffelees life story, she noticed something funny was happening to the screen. It appeared to be glowing a subtle pink, which got brighter by the second. She was annoyed, but mostly confused. By now the pink had blotted out everything else on the screen, and it had started to sparkle and swirl. What happened next was really weird. The pink started to spread off of the screen until it was the size of a full-length mirror, and at the same time a voice whispered in her head.

_-Enter-_

Sage looked around wildly. By now she was getting scared. Pink portals did not normally appear in the computer room, and voices in her head were not normal either.

_-Enter-_

She jumped as she heard the voice again. _I'm probably either insane, or I'm dreaming,_ she decided._ If I'm insane, I might as well have fun, and if I'm dreaming, I'll just go along with it._

So thinking, she stepped through the portal.

Immediately, she was falling, surrounded by color. Landscapes and scenes flashed by. She saw a majestic mountain range, a castle beside a lake, three tall pillars of rock with something flying around them, as well as countless other scenes. Some seemed oddly familiar, but she really didn't have time to think about it, for a second later she landed hard on concrete.

After lying still for about a minute, she started to get up. In doing so, she noticed something odd about her arms.

They were covered in fur.

Scrambling to her feet, she looked at the rest of herself.

More fur.

She went to a nearby puddle to see her face, and gaped at the cat who stared back.

She had black fur that sparkled as the sunlight hit it. Her chest and a diamond-shaped spot on her forehead were a pure, pearly white. There was a beautiful jewel-studded collar around her neck the same light blue color as the shirt she had been wearing that day. Her eyes had changed from their normal dark brown to gold flecked with blue, green, and violet.

She was perfect.

It was the only adjective she could find to describe herself. It sounded a bit like she was overdoing it even to her, but it fit. Something about this description nagged at her, but she shoved it away, concentrating on examining her new body. She looked at her hands and extended her claws. She stroked the soft fur on her arms. She twitched her ears, gathering tiny sounds she wouldn't have been able to sense before.

A slow grin spread across her face.

"Oh, this is so _cool_!" she shouted, jumping as high as she could (which was quite high, considering she was a cat). "I'm a _cat_... oh yes oh yes oh _yes_! This is _so _coo – uh oh..." Her celebrations died as she realized they had attracted company.

Three giant Pollicles were standing at the entrance to the alley. She turned to run, but it was a dead end. Gulping, she turned to face them, and they charged.

Leaping straight up with reflexes she didn't know she had, she landed on the back of the biggest one. It bellowed, trying to shake her off as she clawed its ears for all she was worth. Even as she fought for her life, she wondered how she could fight so well. She had never fought before in her life, but now she seemed to be very skilled. This nagged at her in the same way that her appearance did, but she didn't have time to ponder it. Suddenly, one of the others dragged her off its back, but before it could sink in its teeth she had wiggled loose. When it tried to bite her again, she clawed its face. It shook its head, blinded by its own blood. She tried to run, but something threw her into a wall. She had forgotten about the third Pollicle.

Growling, they began to close in on her. She looked frantically for an escape, she didn't want to die now, just when she had gotten her new body-

There was a flash, and blue lightning arced across the sky to hit the biggest Pollicle, which yelped and ran. Before she could see what caused it, a silver blur crashed into the second. After a moment of snarling and clawing, the Pollicle fled after its fellow. The third decided it would find lunch elsewhere.

**Sage's P.O.V.**

Still trembling from the scare, I looked up and saw a fictional character staring at me worriedly.

The silver tabby reached down and helped me up. "Are you alright? You put up a really good fight, but it's a good thing we came along. No one could stand a chance alone against three Pollicles. I'm Munkustrap."

Still shaken, I remembered to respond. "I'm Sage. Th-thank you."

"Munk, we should take her to the 'yard," came a new voice from behind Munkustrap. "She might have been hurt."

And Mistoffelees stepped forward.

It suddenly occurred to me that she had never really realized how handsome he was, how wonderful. I suddenly felt as if he was the only thing that mattered in the whole world. _I think I'm in love, _I realized dizzily.

He seemed to be thinking similar thoughts about me. "Um, hi... I'm Mistoffelees," he managed to say.

"Was that you who threw the lightning?" I asked, because I couldn't think of anything better. He suddenly seemed to gain confidence.

"Yeah, it was. How'd you guess?"

Before I could reply, Munkustrap butted in, sounding a bit impatient."He's a conjuring cat," he explained. "He can do all sorts of stuff. But we should go if we want to get to the junkyard before dark."

As Mistoffelees and I followed after him, two things nagged at me. One was that my coat was completely clean. It should have been filthy from the fight, but it as as pristine as ever. The other thing was that I had just experienced 'love at first sight'. This shouldn't have been odd, after all, I had just found my true love, and I was only sixteen! I should have felt happy, but I didn't. I just felt... agitated. Shaking my head, I pushed the feeling away.

It probably wasn't important.

**Review replies:**

**Cinderflight: You must die.**

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**I would also like to thank FireGoddess528, Cinderflight, and Miss Tinkerbell for adding my story to their Story Alerts. Thanks you guys, you give me a reason to keep writing!**

**Now be a dear and click that little purple button...**


	3. Introductions

**Yes, I know it's late, I'm very very sorry. cringes I have no excuse this time, except for a massive case of writer's block. I'm going to tell you now, since I neglected to before, that upon clicking on this story you acknowledged that you would have to be resigned to very erratic updates. My muses lead busy lives, and often they will desert me for weeks at a time. Sometimes I lose interest completely in a story I was planning on writing. This has happened at least three times. I usually play stories over and over in my head before writing a word, that may have something to do with it. Anyway, just to warn you, I will try to keep to a weekly update schedule from now on, but you may have to wait a while between chapters.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Cats, it would be considerably longer and Growltiger's Last Stand would be in the movie.**

We wound through back alleys and sidestreets, not meeting any other cats on the way. I walked next to Mistoffelees, shivering at the brush of his pelt against mine. After five minutes or so we reached the gate to the Junkyard. We went through it, and after making our way around a few piles of junk, emerged into a familiar clearing.

It looked exactly as it did in the movie, right down to the angle of Pouncival's chair. Lounging felines occupied several surfaces, but they quickly perked up when Munkustrap, Misto and I entered the clearing. Tugger sauntered over, a few kits trailing after him.

"Hey there Beautiful, what's your name?" Out of the corner of my eye I saw Misto bristle and open his mouth, but I cut him off.

"I'm Sage. Who are you?" I asked. I already knew, of course, but I couldn't let them know that.

"I'm _the _Rum Tum Tugger," was his very predictable answer. He looked like he was going to say more, but Etcetera came forwards.

"I'm Etcetera," she said enthusiastically. "And this is Electra."

"And Victoria!"

More cats started coming closer, eager to introduce themselves. The only one who stayed back was Cassandra. She was scowling, looking at me with narrowed eyes. I couldn't imagine why she didn't like me, but it added to the list of things that nagged.

Munkustrap went off to get Old Deuteronomy, and when they returned things had calmed down a bit. Deuteronomy slowly came over to me.

"Hello, child. What is your name?"

I cleared my throat nervously. "Sage, sir."

"No need to be afraid," he chuckled. "Why have you come to the Junkyard?"

"I want to join the Jellicles," I replied without thinking. Startled, I almost took back my words, but I stopped. They were true, I did want to join. That way I could be with my Mistoffelees.

"Well, we are always open to cats in need of a home. Does anyone have any objections?" he asked. After a moment, Alonzo spoke up.

"How do we know she's trustworthy? She could be a spy from Macavity!" I noticed that Cassandra, beside him, looked very pleased. I was shocked at the accusation and was about to reply when Mistoffelees did so instead.

"A spy? How dare you say that about her! She's beautiful and kind, and I _know _she would never work for him!" There were assorted mutters of agreement, and Alonzo sunk down, looking bashful. Misto's defense of me nagged at me more than anything else so far. Also, I saw Jenny and Jelly talking, and thought I could hear the words 'young love'. I gave a mental shake of my head just in time to hear the words, "Welcome to the Jellicle Tribe." I was a bit startled, I had expected someone else to protest. Oh well. I wasn't one to complain about good luck. I was in the Tribe, and that was what mattered.

The cats gathered around to congratulate me, and before long they began to dance. Mistoffelees came up to me, and shyly asked if I wanted to dance with him. I agreed, of course, and we whirled out into the midst of the rest. I found that I was as unexpectedly skilled at dancing as I was at fighting.

Mistoffelees and I danced for a long time, and eventually the cats began to leave in ones and twos. After a while it was just me and my darling Misto. A part of my mind started in shock. _Waitasec, _my _Misto? _Darling_ Misto? _But the other part of my mind shoved it down viciously. I wasn't going to let this stupid nagging ruin our perfect relationship. We whirled around one last time and came to a halt, staring into each other's eyes.

Reluctantly, I broke the contact. "I should be getting to bed."

"But you don't have a den, where will you stay?"

"Well, is there a box or somewhere that I could sleep until I find a place?"

"Yeah, there's a bunch over that way." He gestured off to the right.

"Thanks. I'll see you in the morning." Smiling, I left in the direction he pointed. It didn't take long to find a box and a piece of old blanket. As soon as I did, I fell asleep.

From the top of a tall pile of junk, a pair of slitted eyes watched their parting. Cassandra growled to herself. "That slut will _not _steal Mistoffelees from me," she whispered viscously. "I'll stop her... somehow."

**On that ominous note (ha!), we end this chapter. I know it was short, but I couldn't put anything else in and have it run smoothly. Also, I need a beta reader. So far, I have had to beta myself. If anyone wants to perform this office, send me a message and I will be most grateful. A cookie to anyone who reviews!**

**xXDemeter-WillowwitchXx: I hope she wasn't a Mary Sue too... thanks for the review!**

**Miss Tinkerbell: I'm glad you like it so much!**

**FireGoddess528: Don't hurt me! I'm sorry!**

**Cindersquirrel: Odd review... and my name has Capital Letters! Adi Sagestar, not adi sagestar. Bad. :P**

**Lastly, there is a story everyone should read. Artificial 9 Lives by hyper-health-critic is quite good, and it seems that I'm the only one reading it. I have offered to advertise for her (or him), so please do read it. You won't be sorry you did.**


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